


Locked and Loaded

by Rydain



Series: As the Chips Fall [3]
Category: The Sexy Brutale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Erotica, Established Relationship, Feel-good, Handcuffs, Humor, M/M, No Spoilers, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13316925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rydain/pseuds/Rydain
Summary: Greyson convinces Redd to see how much fun can be had when he can't get to his picks.





	Locked and Loaded

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nikkusama for joking with me about this until I finally caved and wrote it.

Greyson insisted that Redd drive his electric for once, get a taste of power and polish not quite offered by his shoebox of a sedan that went between points on a map without much enthusiasm. Redd left London with a standard case of studious worry, equally awed by the rocketlike acceleration and convinced he was about to launch them both into orbit. Not long between there and Bath, he was leaning back as if mellowed out by the smooth and easy ride. Until they pulled into their Georgian hotel within the low corridors of shops and bars and galleries near Henrietta Park, when Redd transferred parking duties to Greyson rather than risk a ding or three in the pristine grey finish.

Which Greyson was happy to handle as Redd got them checked in and settled for the long weekend ahead. He strolled off to a grocery across the River Avon for fruit and wine and tea, giving Redd time to unpack a surprise brought in hopes of its own sort of test drive. Greyson came back to their comfortably elegant room with a pair of tote bags to find Redd much the same, palms upturned and questioning with handcuffs dangling from each.

"I thought we were getting away from work." Redd quirked a wry brow at a cuff. "And the shackles it puts on our schedules."

Greyson almost had to laugh at the first place Redd's mind had gone and the terrible joke that followed. "Is that what you think those are for?"

"They lock, don't they?"

"That's the idea."

"Though they seem rather simple compared to those vault grade biaxial whatsits you're always cracking open."

"They are." Greyson smiled. "But not if I can't get to my picks."

Redd looked as if he might ask after the acts of escapism Greyson had joked about ginning up for the stage of Bondes' Brutale where they had met through their respective work, or Flixton's Folly or Pavenham Park or some other sprawling estate playing host to soirees of the richest and barmiest fringe of his social circles, much as Redd made noise about expanding his showboat shuffling into a solid hand of card tricks - pun naturally intended. Instead his brow wrinkled as if remembering other offhand remarks about doing the exact opposite in the bedroom, and his gaze turned to the wrought iron headboard with the realization that Greyson hadn't exactly been jesting.

"So these aren't for work. They're for play."

Greyson let his satisfied look of anticipation speak for itself. Redd was comparatively inexperienced but by no means naive, and more than smart enough to draw conclusions regardless.

"You really want me to do this to you."

"For me," Greyson corrected gently. "I want you to do this for me."

"I'm - I'm not sure I understand." Redd jingled a cuff. "Not this part, I mean. That's obvious. But the rest - it's just - you know."

"The nightmares?"

Two years served and three more past his release, and Greyson still woke in cold sweats from the torment of fragmented memories. Redd held him as he shivered, reminding him in word and deed just how over and done that all was, as the warmth of his deep voice and thickly muscled embrace chased away the stifling damp of Greyson's failed escape tunnel, the sure sweep of oncoming torches, the cold snap of steel around his wrists. That last bit had planted some strange seed well below the pit of Greyson's stomach, blooming with a temptation that dared him to own it. To imagine himself chained up and spread eagled, wide open to Redd's touch and unable to return it - and every mental snapshot only served to stoke that secret heat.

"You know how I am with my record, how I flipped it on its head and put it on my business cards. It's rather like that."

"I see." Not that Redd appeared to, looking more confused and concerned than anything else.

"Trust me. I'm more than all right with this. It's something I want to explore." Greyson laid a hand on Redd's arm. "With you."

Redd still seemed skeptical, almost afraid, though he was polite to a fault, very much charming for that reason, and infinitely more apt to tickle Greyson by accident than to hurt him.

"Redd. Love." The first time either of them had said it over this half year together, gobsmacking Greyson just as much to hear that word leave his mouth. "It's just a thought. One I like very much, but I can leave it at that if you don't."

Redd examined the cuffs, one after the other, as if about to put them back in the suitcase. Instead he tucked them into the drawer of an oak nightstand.

"Let me think about this."

"Of course. As long as you need. In the meantime -" Greyson handed over his phone with a map of the city attractions they had shortlisted while planning. "Or we could walk around for a few, grab a snack or a pint and just soak it all in."

"Hmm. I like that last bit." Surveying a close radius, Redd brought up a modern thermal spa near the preserved site of an ancient Roman hot spring. "When in Bath, take one in style?"

"You just want to see me in my swimsuit."

"I already see you in less."

Greyson made as if to undo his red bow tie chosen to match Redd's plaid shirt. "I could be in less right now."

"Or later. Much later. Patience is a virtue, you know."

"Or a curse."

* * *

Greyson strutted onto the deck of the rooftop thermal pool in cream briefs so snug on his lithe brown body that he might as well have gone starkers if the dress code allowed it. Redd felt much the same in the new navy suit he had dared to swap in for his usual shorts, which cupped both front and rear closely enough to feel near transparent. And to essentially be such as Greyson's gaze took a slow slide down his torso, lingering below just long enough for him to pick up on.

Redd had to laugh when Greyson stole another look as they stepped into the bliss of steaming water. "Don't act like that's all new to you."

"Showing it off like that is."

"I didn't mean to show that off in particular."

Greyson smirked off through rising vapor and the clear glass perimeter at the turreted Gothic tower of Bath Abbey. "It rather can't be helped, can it?"

"Perhaps not when you're around."

"So I bring out the best in you, then?"

"You bring out something, that's for certain." Redd gave Greyson a nudge. "Though I'd be more apt to call it naughty."

"As I said." Greyson sneaked an underwater pinch of arse. "The best."

Redd started to think it might be just as stated. Greyson had a way of pushing his boundaries, enticing him into boldness that deliciously stretched his reserve. Blunt words in bed beyond the usual implications and agreement, playful use of the strength Redd normally saved for the weight room. Touches like this when no one was looking, or when the hand of a former thief was fast enough for discretion regardless. Which Redd's own gigs as pianist and head croupier had arguably prepared him to return, and he worked up some nerve to do so just as Greyson kicked up into a back float and almost gave him a very public handful of the other end instead.

"Nice to know I've still got it. Thought I was going to sink like a rock for a moment there, not like I'd have all that far to go."

Redd dropped to his knees on the pool bottom, found his head still above water. "You wouldn't."

Greyson looked over and lost it, snorting just as he did when Redd beat him up a staircase taken double or easily picked out merchandise from a shop shelf he was straining after on his toes. "You just can't resist, can you?"

"Being tall?"

"Showing off."

"Of course I can't." Redd stood up and reached out, drawing Greyson into his arms. "You're around, right?"

They shared a squeeze and a kiss and a subsequent calm as they relaxed in the warmth of the waters and the relief of getting away, of carving out time between the travels of Greyson's security consultancies and the pressures of a casino schedule that Redd's managerial duties had further served to complicate. Of just being somewhere like this, an upbeat and down to earth city with much in the way of history and artistry and atmosphere for them to explore at their leisure. And that most private adventure Greyson had proposed, whose taboo was beginning to curl deep down with a heat beyond that of the pool.

Which Greyson started to stoke in his own way when they shared a pot of lemon and ginger tea in the airy and sunlit cafe, wrapped in plush terry and the fading languor of the bath. "Nice robe."

"So is yours." Somehow worn as well as his tailored suits and crisp dress shirts, and as always, Greyson glowed in white. Redd felt pale and washed out in comparison, but from his keen gaze at his bare wedge of torso, Greyson hardly seemed to care.

"Though it would be nicer opened wide. Or maybe just a little more."

"Like this?" Redd teased, adjusting his collar to reveal a broader slice of chest.

"Mmm. That's good." Greyson's voice dropped to a low whisper. "Just enough room for my beard. You'd like that right now, wouldn't you?"

Redd felt himself flush, envisioning that raspy delight. How Greyson curled and oiled it whenever they went somewhere posh enough for Redd to wear a waistcoat and tie instead of his usual sweater vest or polo. How he brushed his way down with such patience, from neck to navel and further below -

"More like you'd love it, seeing how hard you get before I even get down there properly. You must be at half mast already just thinking about it."

The words seemed to pierce through the table along with Greyson's knowing look, almost as if to trace the sudden swell in Redd's trunks as he sipped his tea in some effort to show composure.

"Which is really quite impressive. All that, just for me." Greyson took a satisfied bite of almond biscotti. "Even before I put a hand to you."

Redd failed to hide the husky edge on his voice. "Just your mouth."

"And not even like that. Not the slow lick up and the tease around the tip. Or a kiss right there to make you twitch, just as you always do. Almost as if you're about to -"

"Go off just from that," Redd finished in a strangled admission that he felt dangerously apt to. Perhaps from Greyson on sleek and glorious display, his brazen talk in a public place, his listing of weaknesses exploited with the most contented echoes of Redd's gasps and murmurs. His slip of that four-letter word Redd was still finding the courage to say. Or the imagining of his touch as its own sensation, tempting and taunting and priming him for later.

Much later.

Bloody hell.

Especially if Redd were in charge of the provocation and Greyson in no position to return it.

"But you don't - not that easily. You like to make it last. Relish the buildup. Savor the anticipation."

Redd did the same with his glass of water as if it could substitute for a cool shower.

"You said it yourself." Greyson finished his tea in one long sip before getting up to head back to the pool. "Patience is a virtue."

Redd bit back the urge to curse as he followed with much appreciation for the thick fabric of his robe.

* * *

Redd met Greyson outside the thermal bath with tousled hair and an equally casual question of what was up next without the standard exclusion of the obvious. He toured its palatial Roman counterpart with an eye for photos worth sharing and a rather stinky one toward jokes about jumping the ropes into bare-arsed holograms of the past. He agreed to dinner on the roof of a restored auction house collaged with vintage merchandise, allowing only the slightest brow twitch at Greyson's wish to get on top and enjoy the view. Then ordered lentil shepherd's pie as if determined to avoid any cracks about meat, or more so to eat his vegetables on holiday - so keen to stay healthy even on a break from the usual, though he had been all right to put down his weights for a few days. Still Redd looked to be thinking of another sort of workout as his gaze drifted down to a side street with little to see, fingers tapping like they had gone too long without the piano, or the exploration and penetration Greyson had whispered about during the rest of their time in the water.

Which Greyson continued to call back to mind as Redd kept up his stubborn resistance. A slow finger sliding in the last bite of bruschetta. A hand on Redd's knee, subtly squeezing. Then higher, sneakier, trailing over the innermost thigh just short of stroking him. Daring him to react - or not, as he silently bit his lip in anticipation of worse. Or better, as they both damn well knew it was.

Greyson figured it was best of all to dial it down, let it simmer. Go for a pint, which Redd suggested as if to work up his courage while prolonging the anticipation. Sip it steadily, setting the pace for their walk back to the hotel. A practiced saunter for Greyson, not so much for Redd, held nice and easy even as they crossed the River Avon and his pulse began to pound like he was gearing up to sweet talk a fake badge past some poor sod at the front desk. All the heists he had pulled in his old life, the tests above board in his new, and this escapade of theirs was a thrill up there with the rest - especially if Greyson was in for it as much as he hoped.

Greyson picked the door open for the sake of appearance, expecting a question of whether and why this was necessary. Instead Redd kept watch as if the wrong impression might be made, though Greyson was a professional and it was their room. As they stepped inside, he held out a pensive hand, nodding at the locksmith's ring in Greyson's own.

"I'd like to hold onto those for you."

Greyson thought to play clueless or keep-away, prod for more decisive words or action. His heart skipped enough of a beat that he handed his tools over, pressing them into Redd's broad palm. "I won't be needing them, then?"

The picks fell somewhere with a jingle as Redd gripped Greyson's arms, pulling him in with enough of an answer before he murmured it into his mouth. "Not tonight."

Redd kissed with the measured strength of his grasp, sliding down to catch Greyson's wrists when he brushed a low and greedy hand. He guided Greyson back, step by mincing step, as his fingertips itched to free that denim-clad bulge and his own felt a surge at this firm yet gentle entrapment. Then Greyson was scooped up and gathered, lifted and held close, just managing to kick off one polished shoe on the way into bed.

Redd removed the other and shucked off his boots as Greyson slipped a pillow under his head and pushed the rest aside. Greyson laid back and stretched out, arms up in surrender, and Redd approached with enough uncertainty that he looked about to climb aboard as is. Instead he took a step further to the nightstand and turned back around with two handfuls of chrome.

Deft and encircling hands, drawing Greyson's into position with the slightest tremor. Sharp clicks around the wrists, then the wrought iron bars of the headboard. A kiss to each palm, a warm and tender print, lingering just enough for Greyson to brush the chiseled edge of Redd's jaw. One moment's touch - one last time.

Redd stood at the foot of the bed, serious as he was when buried in some book with layers of theme and allusion and characterization for him to go on about when asked to describe it. He undid a single shirt button and took a nervous pull at his collar as if also giving air to the bump in his trousers. Watching, waiting, considering as his mind continued to question the urges betrayed by his body.

"We don't have to do this, you know. Just like with anything else."

Redd showed that blend of desire and relief from past nights when Greyson had asked and he had agreed, when he first wished to be fucked on all fours and was almost as shy just to say it. "I want to. To do it, that is."

A poke of the pick, a slight turn of the torsion wrench. "What would that be?"

"You. Right here. Like this."

Greyson smiled at those words, the confidence in their rhythm. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"Would you rather I show you?"

"Since when do you need to ask?"

Redd took a moment as if he were onstage at the piano and awaiting his cue. Button by button, he opened his shirt, revealing the stretch of ribbed tank over pale sculpted muscle. He stripped to his waist and crawled into bed, arms alive with their strength as he held himself inches above. A breath too far to kiss, the heat of his torso palpable as Greyson strained to meet him, stopped short by clinking chains and the pressure of steel. Then a notch closer, pressing his lips to Greyson's for one languid moment before pulling away with a smirk.

Greyson returned the expression as Redd undid his bow tie like the ribbon of the topmost gift in his birthday haul. Then his shirt, with nipples teased through crisp white cotton and kisses trailed in the wake of its parting. Greyson twitched against the cuffs when Redd turned his mouth back to those sensitive peaks, stirring a deeper urge for that slow wet heat of his tongue. More so as Redd stroked his stomach, tracing that trail of dark curls with no move to follow it south. Circling his navel with a finger, pressing in almost as if to open him elsewhere.

Which Greyson did, just a touch, as Redd sat back on his heels with a flushed sort of satisfaction. Eyeing him in this predicament, sprawled and shackled and conspicuously bound by the slim fit of his trousers. Daring him to move - or at least to try - as his deep blue eyes lidded with thoughts of his next.

Greyson fought the impulse to shift as he caved to the one to provoke. "Isn't there something you want to show me?"

"There's something I want to give you." Redd leaned forward into that whisper, running a finger up Greyson's fly like an electrical current. "Besides more of this same type of grief."

"Is it a surprise?"

"Probably not." Redd drew back off the bed and stood up, thumbs hooked into his waistband beneath low lines of hip muscle. "But let's pretend it is, shall we?"

True to his word, Redd turned around out of sight instead of giving Greyson the show he was in no real position to demand. First his jeans, unbuckled and dropped to reveal pants in a similar plaid to his shirt. Then a glimpse over his shoulder, as if to say he was being theatrical rather than shy about what he never had any reason to, before he bared his arse and then everything else.

Redd crawled up at full frontal attention, nudging Greyson's knees apart to settle between them. He continued the slow tease through trousers, splayed fingers exploring with torturous grace. Thumbing the tip, eliciting a groan that Greyson failed to bite back before it escaped him. Only then did Redd unfasten his belt, then his button, before lowering his zipper to spring him free.

"All that, just for me." Redd smiled with the gratification of turning Greyson's own words back on him. "And I haven't even gotten to it properly."

Greyson refused to compound the sentiment by insisting that Redd get on with such already.

"Hmm. Let's see." Redd took hold of Greyson, stroking and cupping and manipulating him accordingly. "Straight up or on the rocks? Shaken - or stirred?"

Greyson laughed with an edge of frustration at the taste of that delicate touch. "I'm not a cocktail."

"This rather is - well, half of one, in a sense. And in any case -" Redd began to drop his head. "It all goes down just the same."

Greyson thrust into that enveloping heat as if into another one much tighter. Redd pinned his hips to the bed to deny even that slight bit of control, resigning him to hapless shudders at the swirl of tongue over his most personal sensitivities. To a heel scraped along the quilted duvet, a silent plea for release as his cuffed hands clenched with the itch to seize it themselves. Then a sharp exhalation, almost a curse, when Redd gave one long lick up and withdrew.

"You look like you could use a hand there, Grey." Redd sat back with that damned smirk yet again instead of putting his own to the task.

Greyson grunted in equal parts agreement and consternation at his inability to find the words for a comeback.

"It's a bit early for that, sad to say." Redd had been rummaging in the nightstand, sorting out supplies. "Though perhaps I can lift a finger."

Redd did just that, slicked and slow, after trousers and duvet were slid away to make room. After he kneeled on the satin sheets, patient in his own preparations, then showier when he saw Greyson looking. As if he wouldn't - as if there were anything else to do but watch and wait and pray to the point where he might start to give a damn about the possibility of heaven. If, nothing else, as deliverance from this sweetest sort of hell.

Into which Greyson sank even further as Redd set a pillow under his hips with that look of concern as if this time he would finally break him, then took him like he was about to try. Hands planted and head down, pounding, plundering. Forceful and deep, intense and impassioned. And Greyson was folded back and filled, stretched and stuffed, gasping in syncopation with Redd's heavy breaths as the friction seethed just short of overflow. Of the release mere strokes away that might as well have been on the moon as Greyson railed against his bonds in a futile demand for help. Which showed no sign of coming, not any time soon, even as Redd did so himself with a guttural shout that nearly sent Greyson over with the rawness of its ardor.

But not quite, leaving Greyson to sprawl there in all of his aching indignity as Redd settled beside him with no move toward relief. Just the taunting trail of fingers over stomach and hip and thigh, with one chaste kiss from that satisfied mouth of his before he pulled back out of reach.

"Is there something you need?"

As if Greyson's prominence of such wasn't making that painfully obvious as Redd continued to avoid it.

"I might have an idea or two, but it would be easiest if you just told me."

Greyson allowed himself a hiss as that touch traced just shy yet again. "Fuck…"

"We rather just did that. I'll need a while to be up for round two."

"You, maybe." Greyson groaned. "Not me."

"You already are, aren't you?" Redd gave a slow stroke up with his palm as Greyson involuntarily bucked into it. "I wonder what I should do about that."

"Let me go."

Redd took him in the most infuriatingly literal sense. "All right."

"My hands. I need my hands."

"Do you?" Redd made as if to put his own back to work. "Or would you rather have mine instead?"

Greyson refused to answer as Redd continued to leave him hanging.

"I'll take that as a yes if you say the magic word."

Greyson grunted. "Damn it."

"I'll give you a hint. Six letters, a common courtesy."

"What is this, a bloody crossword?"

"It could be if you'd rather put it in writing."

Greyson stewed as the pressure in his groin battled with his determination not to beg for its release. As Redd sat there, waiting, just as obstinate and so very amused.

"Please."

"There." Redd shifted close, filling Greyson's vision as he crawled into a straddle. "Was that really so hard?"

Greyson damned well was as a hand came to ensconce him, strong and supple and steady. Then faster and fiercer, flint strikes into sparks into burgeoning flame. A match to a powder keg, a detonator to a nuke, a mushroom cloud bursting straight through the top of Greyson's head as he arched hard off the bed with his likewise eruption. As he dropped his own verbal bombs, four letters countless times over, and Redd captured him in a kiss before such could be heard all the way over in Bristol.

Then let Greyson go again to do just that, freeing his hands to join in their embrace. To curl close under the covers in the lethargy of the afterglow, luxuriating in the bliss of fulfillment after such exquisite denial. In the fine structure of Redd's face and the near warmth of his body, the slight shading of coarse hair and fresh stubble. The tenderness of touch and word alike, of teases further down though they were both more than done for the night.

"Grey. Love."

Greyson melted into the surprise of that expression, into the beat of Redd's heart speeding up as he had undoubtedly worked up some nerve to say it.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Redd continued.

"I'm rather afraid to ask."

"It's not an idea, not yet. Really more of a question."

"Even so."

"You'll like it. Trust me."

Greyson stayed silent, knowing Redd was good for much more than that, especially in the twilight of this fantasy become flesh and steel.

"How do you plan to get me back for this?"

"Return the favor, you mean? Because that's what it was." Greyson smiled. "Trust me."


End file.
